Phaeton's Tug
by bandofthree
Summary: Merrill picks up a hand for her claim and finds he's not quite what she had anticipated. Part 2 of the Travelers Through Space-time series


Pickings were thin at the market. There were the usual washed-up roughnecks, grizzled old prospectors, and runaways in stolen suits, but no one really _interesting_. Grime was thick in the market's corners. The recycled air smelled like motor oil and burnt brake fumes. Worst of all, it was hot with the stench of rarely washed bodies.

Merrill sighed, resigned to another long month without a second hand at the claim.

"Is that it for you, dear?" The elderly merchant smiled as she bundled the dehydrated foodstuffs and toiletries into Merrill's already over-burdened arms.

"It'll do for a few weeks, I expect. Or it will have to, at any rate. Thank you, Liss." Merrill shifted the burden onto her hip.

She had always liked the old merchant. Liss had been the first to welcome her to this lonesome stretch of the Belt, and hardly ever cheated her. If her prices were a touch inflated over those in the central markets on Ceres, well, that was the price of doing business out here in the Gap.

"Sure you can carry all that?"

"I'll make do. Forgot my pod back on the ship again." Merrill blushed and thumbed in the direction of where her skiff was docked, initiating an avalanche of tubes and bottles from her arms.

"Blast it!" She bent to pick up the goods and another armful promptly tumbled to the floor. She fell to her knees and scrambled as the bottles rolled away. "Oh, this is impossible."

"May I lend a hand?"

Merrill looked up to find a man standing above her. He set an empty crate on the floor and met her on his knees.

"No no no, that's not necessary, really. It's fine. I'm fine. Here, let me—" Before Merrill had finished fretting he was standing again, crate of her groceries balanced on one broad shoulder. As he stood beside her, Merrill realized he was very tall.

"You're very tall," she breathed, then clamped a hand over her mouth in horror. "I'm so sorry. My big mouth! It's not nice to tell Belters they're tall, is it?"

He laughed and it was bright and strong, like platinum. He extended his free hand. "Sebastian. A pleasure." She took his hand and shook it, her face still hot with mortification and wholly unable to speak. "It's true enough, after all. We grow rather long on Ceres, at least compared to you Terrans." He flashed her a brilliant smile. "And you are?"

"Oh, Creators! Merrill. I'm Merrill. Only, I'm not from Earth. Mars, actually. Well, the Mariner Valley slums, but that's still Mars, just not the pretty part you see in pictures. Ah!" She slapped her forehead. "Sorry. Weeks without seeing another soul, you know how it is. You kind of...forget. How to talk like a normal person. I'm doing it again, sorry!"

"Why don't you point me toward your ship and I'll leave this in the bay?" He jostled the crate and started walking toward the docks.

Confused, alarmed, and then just a touch pleased, Merrill jogged after him. They walked down a short row of skiffs before they reached hers. It was small and well-worn, but had a magnificently detailed beak painted on the front.

"Here she is, the Speed Griffon."

He raised his brows. "Speed … Griffon?"

"After a story a bartender told me once. A variation on an old Earth tale. Head, wings, and claws of an eagle, body of a lion." She swiped at the air with menacing claws, and laughed. "They'd race through the mountains, riders on their back, dodging all kinds of terror. Anyway. Speed Griffon." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Plus, it was the only name I could think of that wasn't already registered."

Sebastian shifted the crate to his other shoulder. "And does she live up to her name?"

"Not a bit, I'm afraid." Merrill grinned. She stood at the starboard side and fumbled with her datapad for a moment. The narrow door opened upwards, like an oyster's shell. She hopped in and flipped various switches, powering up the Griffon's systems. "In here, then," she called to him.

Sebastian stepped gingerly into the small space and placed the crate in the aft storage space. "Smaller than it looks on the outside. Might I ask what you do?"

"Mine," Merrill replied absently, fiddling with a blinking readout.

"Yours what?" Sebastian hissed as he hit his head on one of the two small bunks.

Merrill turned, satisfied that all systems were green. "No, _mine_. I'm a miner. You know, platinum, iridium, palladium, that sort of thing. How do you not know anything about mining, being from Ceres?"

Sebastian blushed furiously. "I had an, ah, unusual upbringing."

"Oh, I'll bet," she teased.

Sebastian unhooked his helmet from his belt and went to put it on. He realized mid-action that he was still in breathable atmo—_Strange, my breath is so short_—and tossed it from hand to hand instead.

"Look—" he started.

Merrill held up a hand. "Your sordid past is no concern of mine. If you're going to stay you'll have to pay your share of the provisions. I mean, it's only fair. Split is 80/20 and—" She rattled off the details.

"Stay?" Sebastian interrupted.

"You're a freelancer, aren't you?" Merrill spun to face him in the navigator's chair, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands.

"Ahh." Sebastian's palms were sweaty now, his guts twisted in a knot. "Not _strictly_ speaking, no."

"Then what are you?" Merrill turned her head to the side. She looked just like a bird, he thought: long neck, delicate bone structure, and huge, frighteningly intelligent eyes.

The image of her as a hooded crow lodged itself in his head, sleek and sure. Her bright eyes were just the color of their dappled green eggs. He realized with a start that she'd just asked him what he was and he hadn't said a word. He nearly dropped his helmet in surprise.

"The last surviving heir of the largest shipping conglomerate in the Inner System?"

To his surprise, she laughed. "Oh, indeed, and I'm the Empress of Mars." She performed an elaborate seated bow, still chuckling to herself. Sebastian laughed haltingly with her.

"Keep your secrets, then," she said. "Grab what gear you'll need. We leave in ten." She spun around to face the controls again.

Dazed, elated, his heart pounding, Sebastian wandered off the Speed Griffon and soon found himself before his rented storage locker. He tried the lock three times before realizing he had keyed the incorrect code. _Maker, this is bad idea. What do you know about mining, anyway? Probably get killed by pirates, or, or vengeful aliens from beyond the Oort Cloud_. But he thought again of the tilt of her head, her quick smile, and Speed Griffon. A ship like that, small though it is, was made for the long haul. Her claim must be far out. Far was good.

He thumbed his wrist pad on and transferred the remaining credits in his name to his anonymized account.

"The Maker closes one door…"

He grabbed his pod and a long black case and slammed the locker door.

After two days at full thrust Speed Griffon crested the irregular horizon of 1529 Oterma. The ship came to a slow halt as it fired up its retrograde thrusters.

"Home sweet home!" Merrill chirped, then groaned as her back popped after an exaggerated stretch. "Creators, I'm glad to be back."

Sebastian floated to the forward window and saw only a long expanse of black where stars should be. "Home is...dark." He frowned.

The expression seemed out of place on his face. Merrill's brow wrinkled.

"So impatient! Here." She keyed a sequence on her wrist pad and a swath of the asteroid lit up. The cool blue lights pockmarking the oblong face of the asteroid rotated slowly away from them to mingle with the spread of stars.

Sebastian smiled at her over his shoulder. The retreating blue caught the long planes of his face in a way that made Merrill clench her hands.

A proximity alarm sounded shrill and insistent on the navigation dash. Merrill eased them into a careful dock on the asteroid's surface.

"You'll want to suit up. Life support isn't _quite_ functional just yet. And we have a bit of a walk."

"_What_."

She pretended not to hear his exclamation as she secured her helmet. Small jets of residual carbon dioxide vented around the seal until it secured with a small internal ping. She tapped the helmet's temple and nodded.

"That's the first thing on the list. Life support, I mean. Then the H2O recycler, waste treatment, that sort of thing."

Sebastian's frowned deepened. She could see it even through his thick helmet and fought to hide a smile at his distress.

"How do you live without a life support system?" He asked.

Merrill saw his lips move but didn't hear the words. She shook her head, then tapped the temple of her helmet. He looked at her in confusion then brightened, realizing. He double-tapped the temple of his own helmet. 'Establish local area connection?' His suit prompted.

"Affirmative."

"How do you live without a life support system?" He asked again.

"I've been living on the ship, of course."

Sebastian cast around the sparse space, dubious. "As you say."

Merrill attached her ruckpod to the magnetized back of her suit. "Go for decomp?"

Sebastian buzzed with apprehension. He pushed two hissed breaths between clenched teeth. "Decomp is go."

Merrill keyed the ship's intricate decompression permission sequence into her wristpad. Atmosphere fled the small interior of the ship in a rush, headed for the internal CO2 scrubbers and long term storage. As the air fled so too did sound. Silence enveloped them.

Sebastian sucked in a quick breath, trying to press down his rising panic. Growing up in the broad tunnels below the surface of Ceres you were always a few accidents away from explosive decompression and a frigid, horrifying death. But here out on the edge of the Belt the only things that stood between you and the void were the skin of your suit and the snap of your wit. And maybe a thick hull, if you could afford it.

Merrill opened the ship's hatch and the stars flooded in where the air had been, wheeling away above them. She shimmied from the lip of the ship onto the surface of Oterma. The claim's outer hatch was only a few yards away, but she kicked the toes into the rock nonetheless, activating her mag boots.

"Be careful coming out. Oterma doesn't have enough spin to simulate even a hint of gravity, so some enthusiastic hopping would be than enough to achieve escape velocity." She glanced up at him from the rocky surface and began to smile. Her joking shifted to concern when she saw that he still stood perched in the hatchway.

"Are you alright?"

"Ah. Yes. I am not especially fond of vacuum, is all."

"Oh dear."

"Yes."

"Rather a poor quality in a freelance miner."

"Yes."

She started toward him with careful, deliberate steps. "Give me your hand."

"No, no. My thanks, but no. I'll just rest. Right here. Until such a time as the Maker sees fit to liberate me from this form. Forever, maybe."

"Now you're just being dramatic." She started toward him again but he waved her away. "Have it your way, Merchant Prince. I'll put my things inside while you watch the stars."

An array of lights shone green on the forearm of Merrill's suit. "Moment of truth. Ready?"

Sebastian hesitated, then nodded. "Go ahead."

"One, two, three!" Merrill unsealed her helmet and yanked it over her head. She exhaled into the fresh air and shook out her braids with gusto. She turned to him with a dazzling smile then. "See?" She pointed at her chest and spun in the absence of gravity. "Very much alive!"

Sebastian pulled off his own helmet and exhaled deeply into the small, sealed cave that was their temporary home. He ran a hand through his hair and laughed nervously. "Perhaps I should check the seals once more, just to be sure."

He ran his fingers along the edge of the inner airlock, feeling for the slip and whistle of escaping air. Satisfied they would not suffocate in their sleep, he braced his back against the airlock and closed his eyes. Merrill swam back and forth through the small space, executing tight spins and turns between their sleeping nets, giggling.

"Oh, you have no idea how nice it is to have this done. The claim feels like it's really mine!"

Sebastian opened his eyes and found himself staring into Merrill's, who floated upside-down in front of him.

"Cheer up, grumpy." She poked him in the forehead and spun like a pinwheel. "Is there anything better in the universe than zero gravity?" She floated away from him, a dreamy smile on her face.

"Breathable air," Sebastian mumbled.

Merrill tangled herself up in her sleeping net and sighed. "Now I can finally send the ship out to scout for other claims."

Sebastian coughed once, hard, startled out of his brief reverie on the miracle oxygen. "Send the _ship?_"

Merrill flopped around in her net for a moment and finally came to stare at him. "Of course. How do you think I find claims? Do you _really_ not know _anything_ about asteroid mining?"

Sebastian scowled and kicked off the airlock door, floating back into the bunk area.

"What were you doing in the market, then?"

"Merrill, I haven't been—" He sighed and floated away from her. "Why did you offer me a stake in your claim? We're perfect strangers. I could have been a dangerous criminal."

"But you weren't," Merrill said. "You were kind."

"That's hardly—"

A wailing klaxon interrupted them.

"Proximity alarm!" Merrill swam to the hatch and activated the exterior cameras. The four feeds—for, aft, starboard, port—strung together to create the hazy image of an approaching ship nearly identical to their own, but lacking the prominent beak.

The bottom fell out of Merrill's stomach. "Dread and damnation." She swore and kicked off from the hatch. "That's not the Griffon. Hell, hell, hell!" She slammed her helmet onto her head. It hissed to match her frustration.

She grabbed his helmet from its post on the rough wall and shot it to him. Sebastian fumbled to seal it and flipped on his mic.

"Who are they?"

"Jumpers," Merrill growled. "Here to steal my claim. And after I worked so hard to keep it off the maps, too. How'd they know where to find it? Blight-cursed highway robbers."

Sebastian forehead beaded with sweat. "Do you have a weapon?"

Merrill's eyebrows shot up. "Do _you?_"

Sebastian bounced to the rear of the living quarters and liberated his long black case from storage. "Open the locks."

"Oh, hell." Merrill said. She clipped a number of small spheres to her belt and followed him out the first lock. They waited anxiously as it cycled. The outer lock sprang open and Sebastian shot past the threshold into open space, disappearing above the rim of the door.

"Sebastian!" Merrill's heart seized. _What the spirits is he doing?_ A long gloved hand reached for her over the edge. She took it and he pulled her onto the surface of the asteroid.

"Do you trust me?" His helmet bumped hers. The question of how the jumpers had found them hung in the space between them.

"Should I not?" Merrill whispered. There was no need to keep quiet out in the void, as only he could hear her, but millions of years of evolution on a dangerous garden world didn't care a fig for _should_ or _need_. Quiet was safe, hidden. And she felt dreadfully exposed just then.

Sebastian's white, drawn face confessed his own anxiety. He shook his head and his mouth turned in a sad half-smile. "Is the drill still tethered on this side?" She nodded. He let out a shuddering breath. "When I say so, activate the lights and drill on this half of the asteroid only. Will you do that?"

She raised an eyebrow, skeptical. Even in vacuum body language was key to their communication. Perhaps especially in vacuum. After a beat she nodded.

"Thank you." He said, and rested a thick, gloved hand on her bicep. They crouched there as the unknown ship approached, hulking and silent and dark. Sebastian's hair hung lank across his forehead. Merrill boiled in her suit. When the ship was near enough that they could see the wicked, off-board laser cannon, he squeezed her arm and mouthed 'Now.'

The asteroid's lights sprang to life in a blinding flash. Sebastian tugged her up and together they skipped and boosted across the surface.

They were gasping when they reached the deep darkness of Oterma's far side. Even small movements were exhausting in gravity. The vacuum equivalent of running was debilitating.

"What," Merrill gasped out, "was the point of that?"

Sebastian's breath hissed through his teeth. The suit recycler wasn't designed to handle such a rapid transfer of oxygen and carbon dioxide and it struggled to keep up with the pace of his breathing.

"Distraction," he wheezed. "The drill…"

"Heat. Yes, 'course. And light will confuse their visuals. Ah," she coughed inside her helmet. "What now? I'd really rather not do that again."

Sebastian demagnetized the case from the back of his suit. "How long do you believe we have until we rotate back into their sight?"

Merrill crouched down and stared furtively at the surrounding stars and the asteroid's horizon. "We didn't run far. Five minutes?"

Sebastian lowered himself down the asteroid's surface.

"What are you doing!"

He placed the case on the ground and opened it. Inside rested a sleek, black gun nearly two thirds the man's own inordinate length.

Merrill sank down beside him. "Is that a rail rifle? Are you insane? You're going to take your arm off!"

"A moment, please. I need to concentrate." He unfolded the rifle. Fully assembled, the barrel was easily over a meter long. He socketed the rifle's butt against his shoulder. "You may wish to move to my left side," he whispered into his mic.

She crawled across his back, keeping as low as she could below the horizon. His body tensed as she fell in beside him, the muscles across his back fluttering. She moved quickly away. "Why?"

He smirked, sighting down the scope. "Plasma ejection. Dissipates the heat." He filled the barrel with an armor-piercing round. "It would be rather unfortunate if I inadvertently melted you."

Merrill glared. "Any second now," she whispered, staring into the abyss of stars.

The enemy skiff crested the horizon, hanging dark in the void. It painted a spotlight across the face of the asteroid, presumably searching for them. Sebastian exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The rock shuddered beneath them. He shot back several meters.

"Creators! Are you alright?"

He cracked his neck inside his helmet and crawled back into the position. He sighted down the barrel. "Reinforced shoulder." His voice was steel under the hiss of static between them. He squeezed the trigger again. He crawled back beside her. The enemy ship fell out of view.

Merrill unhooked a sphere from her belt and slotted it into a short, wide muzzled gun. When the ship inched over the horizon again, she fired. A fist-sized blue ball rocketed through space and attached itself to the side of their hull. An arch of light flared brilliantly to life inside the ship's navigation cockpit.

"There's more where that came from!" Merrill whooped over their comm. Sebastian chuckled.

The ship listed once more into view. They could see the pirates had donned their helmets and were frantically darting around inside the ship. Sebastian crowed. "Hah! Pierced their hull."

The ship fell below the horizon and soon enough they saw the hot pulse of its thrusters trail into the distance. Soon they were indistinguishable from stars.

"No more?" Sebastian said. "Pity, I still have a few more rounds."

Merrill giggled. Over the comm it sounded like the tinkling of silverware against crystal, bright and sunny. Sebastian deconstructed his rifle and returned it to its case. He rose slowly, ensuring his mag boots were active.

Merrill floated up beside him, grinning. "Reinforced shoulder, huh?"

He waved his right arm at her and settled the case against his back. "Bionic. I lost the real thing many years ago. It seemed like the best option at the time."

"Elgar'nan! Did it hurt terribly?"

Sebastian shrugged. "There are worse pains. Come on," he said, elbowing her in her rib plating. "Let's secure the camp."

She caught his hand and squeezed his fingertips through the glove. "Perhaps you're not as useless as you let on, hm?"

Sebastian smiled, and her heart turned over./p


End file.
